Pagina's

Sunday, August 2, 2015

Sa 01-08: Balloons, paella and wind

What a lovely morning. For the first time during LMAB15 I
actually had the time to just walk around on the runway, taking pictures from
the ground. I spotted an odd registration number, starting with LY, meaning the
balloon is registered in Lithuania. Nice! Having lived there for 1,5 years, I
still cherish warm feelings for this beautiful Baltic country. I had a look if
I could spot some of my Lithuanian balloon friends, but no, they didn’t look like Lithuanians
at all. Nevertheless, just a moment later I heard “Nienke, want to join?” from
that very basket, in Dutch. There were two Dutchman on board, and pilot Arjan
Schuurmans offered me a flight with a smile. Off we went. The wind was so
steerable, so our track on the map contained an almost perfectly round circle.
We had lots of fun and flew for almost two hours. Interesting though how
dialects can differ, even in such a tiny country like the Netherlands. I’m from
the peaceful and not too crowded Northern part of the country myself, while
this balloon team is based in the South, not too far away from Belgium. I
considered them to speak funny, but they thought the same of me.

This afternoon Sarah, my father and I joined Daniel, our
friend from Sweden. It was a delight to drive in his basically brand new
electric Volvo, from which we could enjoy the French landscape at its second
best (as it still can’t beat the view from the balloon). We came across Swedish
pilot Pelle Lesser, his wife Ulla and their kind crew members as well, and
ended up at a stained glass window atelier. Interesting to see how for example
the typical art nouveau windows in Nancy are made, and which kind of coloring techniques
exist within this artisanal world. We were very hungry and the artist was so
kind to call some restaurants in the area of Toul in order to ask if they were
still serving food. A lot of places close after 14.00 during the weekend. One
little restaurant stayed open a little longer especially for us, and wow, the
food we were served looked and tasted delicious. I enjoyed a big plate of
paella and my dessert was apricot tiramisu. As Sarah would say: I was a happy
bunny; you could stick a fork in me.

This evening it was rather windy. Peter decided not to take
off, and that seemed like a wise decision. It was too much of a hassle for most
of the teams to get their balloons up calmly. My dad joined Per in the special
shape glove and their landing was proclaimed to be ‘spicy’. Per: “Is my foot on
your leg Bennie?”. Bennie: “Yes, and your ass is in my face!”. While all that
happened far away from the launch field, Sarah and I kept on watching the
departing balloons. It’s always fun to have Sarah around. I just love her sense
of humor. Luckily we could postpone the whole saying goodbye thing a bit by
tailgating at the parking lot. Peter’s French crew Benoit and his wife Caroline
brought some heavenly cloud/cheese cake, enjoyed by all. It was after 23.00
once we were finally back at the hotel; now time to say goodbye to my dear
tea-loving friend. Luckily Sarah will be in Albuquerque again in two months,
and so do I.